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I know I’m a bit late in doing this. I’ve already gotten used to writing “2017” on the date line, and the month is almost half-over after all…

But I thought a little personal retrospective gazing might be both fun and useful, at least for me, and at least in terms of this particular blog and my self-installment into the Asperger’s/autism spectrum community. 🙂

A year in review…

This blog was “born” on 28 April 2016, with its debut post, “The Silent Wave“, which at first had come and gone with little fanfare. My early followers and commenters graciously offered me their support and encouragement, and I hope I helped them just as much in some way.

Within less than three months (either 9 or 11 July), I took the blog to Twitter. My original purpose for doing so was twofold: 1) I wanted to increase the blog’s visibility in hopes of helping more people feel less alone, and 2) I wanted to connect in another (more real-time conversational) way with some of the incredibly talented bloggers I had met already.

To my glee, I not only accomplished those two goals (meeting those bloggers and gaining the visibility boost), but I also connected with so many other loving and wise souls! Almost 1,600 of them, as of New Years Eve (!).

This community offered me a chance to peer into an entire world of varying perspectives, alternative viewpoints, a wide array of lifestyles, and a variety of struggles and triumphs.

It didn’t take me long to delve into at least peripheral semi-activism, as I began to witness the weight heaped upon us by the rest of the world (who doesn’t remember the atrocious Time Magazine article (link to my post) in which its author just had to include the term “with Asperger’s” after the word “sociopath”, or the equally appalling “Locked In” campaign? (Link to my posts on those topics, too)). I even started to pipe up about what is currently a pipe-dream: a suggestion to keep Asperger’s/autism in the ICD-10 (for disability eligibility purposes) but to remove it from the DSM (since that’s a manual of “mental disorders” and spectrum conditions have been well-established to be neurodevelopmental and not mental disorders).

Sometimes we went to war amongst ourselves; I unabashedly bang my personal gavel on the side of self-assessment (aka self-diagnosis) being valid, given, of course, that one has indeed done due diligent research and ruled out other possible conditions with overlapping traits. No one knows you better than you do, and if you are indeed sure that you’re on the spectrum, then who am I to deny you that self-assessment? If you’re not one of the rare-but-unfortunate examples of people adopting that label as an excuse to be non-personable or to get attention or what-have-you, then by all means, connect with me. 🙂

My support for the pro-self-diagnosis side lost me relatively few friends (and mostly negative ones at that), but I even got my own hate mail, too! My very first trolls, whom, after another go-round with yet another troll in late December, I decided to smack down fairly hard. Within days of posting, the smack-down rant shot into the list of my top ten most popular posts thus far. (Should I feel honored in a twisted way? )

People came to my defense and support, too, whenever it was needed, and it was always much appreciated! A dear friend (who knows who they are) guest-wrote a beautiful piece, which my friend Happy Healthy Autist (HHA) graciously published. Another blog-writer (Scott over at Faith and Food) wrote his own piece that piggybacked on–and concurred with–HHA’s post.

But in the midst of all the chaos, confusion, and conflict, there were also so many sunny and warm fuzzy feelings that made all the occasional struggles worth weathering. Finally, armed with a shiny new lexicon and bad-ass survival strategy toolbox to match, I was able to reframe my life in a way that (finally) made sense. To paraphrase one of Rhi’s recent statements, Asperger’s/autism isn’t a puzzle piece, nor is it even a puzzle; it’s the code key that solves the puzzle. (She said it a bit differently, probably more eloquently than I, but the meaning seems similar).

I found a rainbow mushroom cloud of blogs, blog-writers, and books that somehow made my life easier, allowed me to forgive myself, allowed me to reunite with my long-forgotten and abandoned childhood self, and actually begin to become what I might’ve been engineered to be. For the first time, I was (and could be) honest, both with myself and others, about my gender identity and sexual orientation. For the first time, I saw my apparent “laziness” for what it truly was, which could be any number of phenomena, depending on the situation. The community turned out to be lifesavers for me, helping me also realize that I am probably a spoonie, who also probably has Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (EDS).

I had been helped so much by the community, whether it involved offers of love and support, or cyber-hand-holding during my formal diagnostic process (links to the “before” and “after” posts), or simply the reassurance that not only am I not alone or “weird” for thinking how I do, but I actually feel like a node in a “hive mind“, that I literally brimmed with joy and “real-life” smiles as I stare at my mobile screen every morning. Every so often, a tweet, blog comment, or Facebook post makes me chuckle, to the point where I’m sure that my neighbors walking their dogs every morning pause to wonder what’s on my mobile screen that could possibly be so amusing.

Within a matter of days, weeks, and months, previously-unknown waves of people were emerging from the world around me. Some were “real-life” friends who disclosed to me that my posts on social media and this blog had actually caused them to stop and question whether or not they, too, were actually on the spectrum. Others were people whom I knew only by their screen names and avatars, but became treasured as dear friends online, forming bonds over wi-fi connections that were just as real, genuine, and significant as they would have had I been able to reach out and touch them in the flesh. Some of those people graciously tapped me on the shoulder to collaborate with them on various projects, most of which I must hold in confidence for now, as they are in the making as we speak.

As is the case with (I’m guessing) most blog-writers out there, there were posts that surprised me with their popularity; I hadn’t thought of them as anything special at the time of writing them. Some of these included posts about loneliness, (apparent) laziness, coming out in professional life to one of my clientele, friendship, and a few others.

Conversely, there were a few posts that I had a smashing good time writing, but didn’t end up to be as popular as I had thought they might be. One of these is the Aspie/Autistic Operating System post (not the “apps” one, but the one before that linked to above); others include the Hitchhiker’s Guide-themed “handbook” for handling neurotypical people, the long list of “a-ha!” moments that hit me in waves after realizing that I’m probably on the Asperger’s/autism spectrum, a three-partblog-postseries about why we might talk too much or over-share, and truths (as opposed to myths (the latter of which also got a three-part series)) about the Asperger’s/autism spectrum, really cool theories my partner has come up with about people on the spectrum, dissecting my own astrological chart and relating the tidbits to spectrum characteristics, my desires for Asperger’s/autism spectrum world domination, seizing our inner superpower (whenever we can), and anothertrilogyof posts, this time about songs that ran through my head while researching the Asperger’s/autism spectrum and my potential place on it, that seemed to fit the occasion particularly well for me.

I’m humbled and grateful to say that apparently, the blog spoke unexpectedly often to many wonderful and talented souls, too many to name here, but I need to give a shout-out to several of my most frequent re-bloggers/sharers, who include:

Published by Laina Eartharcher

17 Comments

im *very* flattered (and somewhat capable) to be a node in your parallel computation. i know you would / do the same for me. if you could see me, i would bow.

a week or two in is a GREAT time to look back at the year! a week or two in, youve got a much better idea whats different already– and that helps put a real outline around the previous one.

at its best, the internet is 1. the largest library built in the history of mankind 2. the ultimate super-telephone 3. a way to enhance the human intellect by allowing collaborative thought across international borders, on a scale and at a speed never before impossible. it absolutely is a hive.

(4. a lot of “dirty” movies and a ton of nasty horrible little trolls! of which ive been one on occasion, but only incidentally. ive never been one of those career-trolls that are doing it purely to make people miserable. but such people exist in life, as they did before the web.)

Thank you so much, my friend! Yep, I feel totally honored to be a node in your circle as well; I love your candid, matter-of-fact, part-quirky-part-sensitive nature! And to you, I bow as well ❤️❤️

I completely agree with your assessment of the internet! Its wild-west nature is both its awesomeness and its peril. There’s a hell of a lot to take in, so many ways to benefit, and a hell of a lot to watch out for. Purely amazing invention! I honestly don’t know where I’d be without it 😊 I don’t even want to imagine a parallel universe in which I hadn’t met you or the other amazing peeps in our community! 😊

Thanks so much for mentioning me! You really have made the most of your time. Good for you! Total autistic prolific-ness (if that’s a word). And you’ve exponentially improved the quality of the conversations in the relatively short period you’ve been working. Completely and totally awesome, I have to say. Hope 2017 brings you as much joy and energy as last year did. Onward and upward!

Omg thank you so very much, girl! I’m extremely honored and touched by your words. You have certainly done the same, dear friend! You and your writing have touched and transformed my world into something much brighter and shinier! 😘❤️💜

Well your partner is a very lucky man then as you’re very attractive. Internet got cut off again after I last wrote. Happened about a dozen times today. It happened last month as well, but my IP provider thought they’d stopped it. There are these people who target companies and try to cause as much disruption as they can and take their Internet down. Malicious. I remember when we didn’t even need firewalls or antivrus, now we need them all the time.

It’s been quite a year for you! I’ve actually been struggling both to read and write this year. (Well, “struggle” is a relative thing, but for me I’ve been doing markedly less of both.) That’s an indication that things are off, but I haven’t really figured out how or why yet.

Reading the above did remind me of something. Maybe it’s because my second father was a psychiatrist (and probably a big factor in some of the ways I learned to cope) and my mother has two masters in psychology (or maybe one almost master, complete with a published book based on her thesis that’s sometimes been used as a textbook for a handful of courses, and then a masters in art therapy, I forget the details) but the DSM has never been a bogeyman for me. It could perhaps have a better name since we know a lot more now than we did with DSM I, but names tend to stick once well-established. ICD-10 is the diagnostic code and is used for record-keeping and billing. The DSM, at least in the US, is considered the psychopathology manual but it does reference the appropriate ICD-10 code for diagnoses. It has an entire section for neurodevelopmental disorders, not just autism. None of them can really be considered mental disorders, per se, either. They are all developmental and rooted in the fundamental neurology of the brain. So the fact that autism is neurodevelopmental isn’t really a reason to remove it from the DSM. I think condition might be a less loaded word than disorder, but if we’re going by name, the “International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems” isn’t actually much better. Autism isn’t a disease or a health problem related to a disease, either. Maybe we’ll develop better classification and pathology systems (and names for those systems) in the future. But I don’t think the problem lies in placing autism in the DSM. I think the problem is societal stigma against anything labeled or even associated with “mental disorder”.

I’ve been trying to figure out what EDS is since I’ve read a lot about it, but I’m still pretty stumped. Apparently it’s related to hypermobility, but also different somehow. I’m mostly curious because my youngest daughter is diagnosed with joint hypermobility (and my wife probably has it as well), but I had never heard of EDS before I started exploring autism. It’s hard to find a clear description. Or at least, what I’ve found has only muddied my mental water further.

Thank you so much for sharing your ideas! You make a *really* good point about the ICD-10; “Diseases” is a poor term 👏🏼👏🏼😊

Your comment reminded me and inspired me about an alternate manual – of Neurological orientations or something! I’m sure I’m not the originator of that idea; I’ve seen it alluded to by a few others here & there. A reference manual of some kind that would essentially categorize different neurodivergent types – it could have the Myers-Briggs types in there if desired, and it could also include conditions like ADHD, Asperger’s, autism, PDD, sensory processing, creativity, genius, etc. Something objective, logical, and judgment-free. Certain listings could indeed be eligible for assistance and accommodations as needed or desired by the individual person. Omg I think you’ve just inspired a future blog post lol ❤️❤️